Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), scientific panel created (1988) by two United Nations organizations, the UN Environment Program and the World Meteorological Organization. Open to all member nations in these two groups, the IPCC was established to gather, assess, and make available objective scientific, technical, and socioeconomic information on human-induced climate change. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the IPCC is governed by a general assembly. It does not conduct its own research, but, divided into three working groups and a task force, it gathers material on climate change from hundreds of scientists and other reputable experts, analyzing and summarizing it in periodic IPCC assessment reports. The panel also publishes special reports, methodology reports, technical papers, and supporting material. Its studies have affirmed that global warming has occurred and that humans are likely the dominant cause of global warming. In 2007 the IPCC and Albert Gore, Jr. shared the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of their work to "disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundation for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."